L.A. County Phishing Attack: 750,000 record data breach

Dec 18, 2016 11:25:02 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Confidential health data or personal information of more than 750,000 people may have been accessed in a cyberattack on Los Angeles County employees in May that led to charges this week ...

The rise of ransomware-as-a-service. Stu Sjouwerman CSO Interview

Dec 17, 2016 10:21:28 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

My Interview at CSO About Ransomware-as-a-Service Joan Goodchild, Editor-in-chief at CSO sat me down and asked why Ransomware-as-a-Service has taken off recently: "It’s not just your ...

IBM study: 70% of Businesses Attacked Pay Ransomware

Dec 15, 2016 3:56:17 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

A rather mind-blowing 70% of businesses hit by ransomware paid the hackers to regain access to hijacked systems and files, according to a new IBM X-Force Ransomware report. Of the ...

[ALERT] Yikes, A New And Scary Double-Ransomware Whammy.

Dec 11, 2016 12:05:07 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Sophos reported on one of the more scary ransomware strains I have seen lately. It's called Goldeneye and encrypts the workstation twice: both the files and the Master File Table (MFT). ...

SanFran Muni Ransomware Hacker Gets Hacked Back!

Dec 11, 2016 9:47:49 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

A couple of weeks ago, a yet unknown attacker hacked the computer systems of the San Francisco’s Municipal railway causing a free ride for all that Saturday. The ransomware hacker was ...

Want Your Ransomed Files Back? Just Infect Someone Else!

Dec 8, 2016 5:03:09 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Larry Abrams just reported: "Yesterday a new in-development ransomware was discovered by MalwareHunterTeam called Popcorn Time that intends to give victim's a very unusual, and criminal, ...

Locky Ransomware Campaign Using Osiris Extension from Egyptian Mythology

Dec 8, 2016 8:08:04 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

The threat actors behind Locky ransomware have moved on from Norse gods such as Zepto, Odin and Thor and into Egyptian mythology with a new campaign that uses the extension .osiris when ...

Why Advanced Ransomware Is Cybercrime's Most Profitable Business Model

Nov 23, 2016 8:46:01 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

RSA did a revealing ransomware risk-reward analysis. See that $6 million number over to the right? Why does cybercrime like ransomware so much? Low Risk, High Payoff From the bad guy's ...

Yes, that message is really from Facebook. And, yes, it's really malicious.

Nov 23, 2016 8:33:01 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

By Eric Howes, KnowBe4 Principal Lab Researcher Just two weeks after we reported that the bad guys had effectively converted LinkedIin into a phishing platform, Facebook once again found ...

Ransomware Roundup November 2016

Nov 21, 2016 7:46:40 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Crysis decryption keys posted The decryption keys of the Crysis ransomware were posted on Pastebin, which allows victims to decrypt their hijacked files without paying. Crysis was ...

Healthcare Sees 20 Data Loss Incidents PER DAY Due To Ransomware

Nov 13, 2016 9:49:23 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

In late October, three of the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) hospitals’ computer systems were attacked by malware that forced the hospital to cancel scheduled surgeries and divert ...

My Antivirus Failed The RanSim Test. How Do I Fix This?

Nov 10, 2016 11:18:52 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

So, you downloaded KnowBe4's Ransomware Simulator test and your antivirus security software failed one or more of the ransomware scenarios. When this happens we almost always get asked: ...

New Locky Ransomware Phishing Attack: Credit Card Suspended And Suspicious Money Movements

Nov 10, 2016 7:05:39 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Graham Cluley was the first to report on a new Locky ransomware phishing attack where the emails claim to be "credit card suspended" and "suspicious money movement" warnings. He said: "In ...

New Version Of Nymaim Malware Targets High-Level Managers

Nov 5, 2016 10:23:22 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

A new version of the Nymaim malware family targets high-level managers with attached malicious Word documents and drops ransomware and banking trojans. The cyber research team at Verint ...

Insurance underwriter Beazley: "Ransomware attacks will be four times higher in 2016"

Oct 27, 2016 6:07:45 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

The Wall Street Journal is getting the message. They said : "For companies concerned about the soaring number of ransomware attacks–in which hackers take control of data or systems and ...

Ransomware Strain Count Surpasses 200

Oct 22, 2016 6:47:53 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Michael Gillespie tweeted: "Whew! ID #Ransomware can now identify 200 ransomware families. :) Sad such a milestone was hit so quickly..." He added a list from the malwarehunterteam site, ...

"My AV blocked RanSim.exe So I'm Safe" No You Are Not

Oct 20, 2016 10:32:11 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

I'm noticing a lot of people saying the ransim.exe file is getting blocked by your AV. You have to actually allow the initial processes to run to do the simulation. It is the five test ...

Python Ransomware Uses A Unique Key For Each File That Is Encrypted

Oct 15, 2016 10:33:23 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

A new ransomware strain written in Python called CryPy was disclosed by Avast malware analyst Jakub Kroustek. It seems that Pyton is getting more popular as a ransomware development ...

More than 60% of US office workers are unaware of the ransomware threat

Oct 13, 2016 8:26:51 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Nearly half of ransomware attacks are aimed at office workers, but almost two-thirds of those polled are unaware of the threat More than 60% of US office workers are unaware of ransomware ...

AI-powered ransomware is coming, and it's going to be terrifying

Oct 12, 2016 8:09:30 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Business Insider started an article with the following: "Imagine you've got a meeting with a client, and shortly before you leave, they send you over a confirmation and a map with ...

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